LOVELAND, Colo., April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Longview Advisors, organizers of the annual 3D Collaboration & Interoperability Congress (CIC), today announced a special workshop focusing on the Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) as part of the 2011 event, to be held May 23 to 25 in Denver, Colorado (www.3dcic.com). The workshop will cover topics of particular interest to engineering and IT managers who may be planning or implementing processes to drive a digital MBE/MBD vision for more effective global collaboration in product development and manufacturing.

The MBE workshop will be kicked off by Sanjay Parimi, ARDEC Project Officer, Materials, Manufacturing & Prototype Technology U.S. ARMY, ARDEC. Mr. Parimi's presentation, "Unlocking Native 3D CAD and MBD Assets For Use in Downstream Interactive 3D PDF Manufacturing Documents," will discuss reuse of 3D CAD and embedded Model-Based Definition (MBD) data in downstream manufacturing processes. The following additional topics also will be presented in this year's MBE Workshop:

MBE Dictionary – Provides definitions of MBE terms, condensed by the user community to enable use of consistent language when discussing MBE solutions. Presenter: Jennifer Herron, president of Action Engineering.

MBE Standards Overview – Provides an overview of various MBE Standards that the DoD Engineering Drawing and Modeling Working Group uses to drive Technical Data requirement deliverables in Government Contracts. Presenters: Paul Huang, project lead for Army Research Laboratory in Model-Based Enterprise Programs, and Ric Norton, Program Manager and Technical Data Analyst for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Logistics Information Service.

MBE Pilot Programs – Provides a review of past and current MBE pilot programs, including the transition into production of MBE and MBD methods for manufacturing planning. Presenter: Rich Eckenrode, president of Recon Services, who brings more than 35 years of experience in manufacturing engineering and operations organizations, and is heavily involved with MBE-related initiatives, including several Design For Manufacturability projects in vehicle structure design.

The MBE Workshop will be hosted by Jennifer Herron, president of Action Engineering (www.action-engineering.com), a consulting firm that transitions companies to effectively use MBE/MBD. Ms. Herron has more than 14 years of product design experience in the aerospace and defense industry, highlighted by military robot platform design, a patent for a snake propulsion mechanism and several thermally efficient electronic enclosure systems for ground robots and satellites.

Full abstracts and bios for each presentation are available on the CIC website at (www.3dcic.com/agenda-items), along with comments from past attendees, and free access to all presentations and audios from the 2010, 2009 and 2008 events.

Now in its eighth year, the annual CIC brings together experts and executives from a wide range of discrete manufacturing industries, as well as representatives from government and defense communities, to discuss the latest issues and solutions in collaboration and interoperability in global business. The three-day international meeting provides a world-class forum for exploring strategies, opportunities and solutions for improving innovation in such areas as global product development, manufacturing, logistics and support.